Thanks to support from the Valentine Foundation, Mighty Writers will offer several one-time, girl themed workshops to local schools, afterschool programs and community organizations during spring 2015. Check our offerings below and email rloeper@mightywriters.org to bring a Girl Power workshop to your group. Availability is limited, so get in touch today!

Girl Power Theater
Suggested age group: 10 and up
Teaching Artist: Caroline Rhoads
Through improvisation and acting exercises, we celebrate the voices and opinions of the young ladies of Philadelphia. We’ll talk about girl empowerment and storytelling, and learn to celebrate one another’s strengths and stories. Together, we’ll create original characters that represent the girls of Philadelphia and develop a plot that tells all of our stories. Multi-session workshops end in a final performance.

Princess to Queen
Suggested age group: 11 and up
Teaching Artist: Robin Stewart
In this rites of passage workshop for girls, we’ll learn how to boost our self confidence by writing about it! We’ll learn basic etiquette, some do’s and don’ts for school, home and socializing. We’ll respond to inspirational stories of great women through poetry, persuasive and informational writing.

Girls Rule the World
Suggested age group: 12 and up
Teaching Artist: Mikala Jamison
This workshop seeks to give young girls a chance to develop their critical reading and writing skills while thinking about what it means to see the world through the eyes of a Philadelphia girl. We’ll study literature by other women and girls, and talk about the issues facing us today: body image, relationships, friendships, stereotypes, and more. In a safe and supportive community, we’ll find our girl power and write from a place of thoughtful kindness and acceptance. Girls rule: first Philadelphia, and then the world.

Grit for Girls
Suggested age group: 12 and up
Teaching Artist: Ann Atkins
Join author Ann Atkins, who has written several books on the theme of women who’ve got grit. Grit is perseverance and passion for long-term goals and it is an important trait for Philly girls. Many of us have it already. Atkins has written books on First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, teacher and politician Golda Meir and chemist and physicist Marie Curie. Together, we’ll learn about the grit that made these women successful and how to foster that same trait in ourselves. Join our community for a discussion of grit and goals, roadblocks and resolve.

We’re often asked how we chart writing progress. How we know if kids are becoming better writers.

We have a few answers.

We collect report cards, so we see how each Mighty kid is doing in English and language arts.

We also have a computer program that analyzes writing progress. The kids type their stories into a template, press submit and the program evaluates their writing. It may be they need to be more descriptive. Or maybe there’s too much description.

The kids revise, and resubmit. We track their scores over time.

There’s another way we judge how kids are progressing with writing. It has nothing to do with report cards or computer programs. It’s purely observational. It’s called confidence.

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Early into our launch of Mighty Writers, one of our little Mighty guys stopped me as I was coming through the front door. He had a question.

“How do you get the money to run Mighty Writers?”

“Any way I can,” I told him, adhering to my vow to always speak truth to Mighty power.

He thought about that for a moment. I could see the self-esteem he’d earned at Mighty Writers grow right in front of me.

“Know what I’m going to do, Mr. Tim? I’m going to open up a sneaker store and give the money to Mighty Writers. And then when I grow up, I’m going to be a lawyer and buy you a whole lot of Mighty Writer houses.”